A 1-Cow Rating (Barely)

Consumer Reports magazine may be the best place to turn if you can’t decide between the Toyota and the Nissan, but its parent company Consumers Union (CU) has become one of the most vocal scaremongers when it comes to mad cow disease. In the May issue, CU calls on the Federal government to implement a host of unnecessary regulations in order, they say, to ensure the safety of our meat supply.

CU’s laundry list of recommendations reads almost exactly like a pair of 1999 lawsuits filed against the US government by a group including the Center for Food Safety (CFS) and the Center for Media & Democracy (CMD). CU’s own Michael Hansen was also involved in this effort. If you’ve read our Mad Cow report, you know that these ridiculous legal actions had less to do with food safety than with an attempt to reduce meat consumption.